You can’t get away from social media in the political debate, just as you can’t get away from social media full-stop. Ever since Barack Obama’s victory was branded the Facebook election, people have looked at online movements and wondered what impact they have at the polling station.

But something different is happening with Jeremy Corbyn. While the Conservatives posted relentless YouTube attack videos and bought up Snapchat advertising slots, some mostly young Labour supporters were spreading the love for Corbyn using the argot and themes relevant to them. Milifandom had nothing on Corbyn’s online appeal. Here are a few examples of Corbyn memes that flew in the election campaign. Could they have swept people all the way to the polls?

The Absolute Boy

A video by the leftwing commentator Aaron Bastani was one of the most widely shared uses of this name for Corbyn. It’s unclear where it originated (Absolute Boy is an anime series, but I doubt it’s that), but it shows the youth demographic adopting Corbyn as one of their own and in their own vernacular.

Where did this end? With “Get on board with the absolute boy” badges and an Instagram post of Lena Dunham holding one.

Corbyn or May?

This particular meme never fails to deliver. Inspired by the Bernie or Hillary? meme last summer, it pits the two leaders’ outlooks against each other. May v Corbyn then spread to El Gato (Corbyn’s cat) v Larry (the chief mouser at No 10).

Jam and other niche interests

Corbyn has never been shy about his love of jam, or marrows, or allotments. He makes his own jam and he’s proud of it, even talking about it on The One Show. One of the best moments of Vice’s documentary on Corbyn was him outlining a plan to sign apples for fans. It’s even said he has sometimes been incommunicado because of his jam-making.

Corbyn’s other niche interests include manhole covers (yes, really), marrows and trains. My favourite headline of the campaign might have been: “Corbyn: yes, I collect manhole covers”. And what the hell is wrong with that?

Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb)

Can confirm that the high point of working for Jeremy Corbyn was him drawing my name in the Secret Santa and giving me two jars of his jam.

Interestingly, Pringles has yet to capitalise on this; usually companies on Twitter are keen to insert themselves into every narrative for maximum brand reach. Who knew that a Pelican-mouth-shaped crisp would feature so prominently? Why is this important? Because politicians never manage to eat normally (see: Miliband and bacon, May and chips), and Corbyn passed this test. Radio Times even called it the “turning point of the general election”.

Grime hero

It seems that #grime4Corbyn has had a genuine cut-through, especially with the young and non-white electorate, though turnout figures won’t be known for a week or so. Our reporter Iman Amrani went to the gig in London and found widespread enthusiasm and motivation from the crowd there. The social reach for #grime4corbyn was also huge, with that particular hashtag trending higher than Corbyn’s manifesto on its launch day. Implausibly, even Danny DeVito got in on it, with 27,000 retweets and counting.

As the Guardian’s film shows, this online buzz seems to have translated IRL (in real life). Grime fans also said the leader’s interview with the grime star JME, a coup for iD magazine, encouraged them to sign up to vote for the first time. Labour’s leader was also on the cover of NME and Kerrang! magazines and musicians outside of grime lending their support included Akala, Clean Bandit, Lily Allen, Kyla La Grange, MIA and Rag N Bone Man.

The Corbyn version was made by two friends in Bristol, and has sold out on their online shop. It has been seen widely on the streets as well as on celebrity and #influencer Instagram feeds. For some reason, May on the other hand, who is supposedly the fashion-obsessed politician, has taken to wearing the exact same outfit repeatedly. Why on earth she keeps wearing the outfit that links her in the collective conscious with that awkward Trump encounter is unknown (she wore it again on election night).

Kids and animals

They say never work with kids and animals, but Corbyn definitely works with both, as plenty of photo opportunities and meet and greets showed. He’s similar in that sense to Obama and the Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who have both benefited from their ease around babies and dogs, and the memes that lends itself to.

Fighting mode Corbyn

There’s been a good narrative of subverting the image of Corbyn as a jam-loving, sweater-vest-wearing softie, by re-imagining him as scrapping for a fight, touching on the previous laddism. There’s a Twitter account, @AngryCorbyn, which collates these memes, and most images are lifted from that time a frustrated Corbyn was pulled away from the political press corps.

Footy Corbs

A lifelong Arsenal fan, who was at Wembley to watch the club’s FA Cup win, Corbyn has also said he would invite European leaders to a match as a form of friendly diplomacy. The cross-section of football fans and Corbyn supporters has been huge. This may be down to his support for grassroots football and his YouTube videos promoting his policies on football. The football chant of “Here we go, here we fucking go!” was frequently deployed as Labour’s surge began to happen in the polls, and when the results came in on election night (and it was one of the tweets sent from Corbyn’s account when it was hacked last year).

When Corbyn’s account was hacked. Photograph: Twitter

But in particular, an old video of Kevin Keegan, ranting that his club had to go to Middlesbrough and get a result, has found a new lease of life and folded into the narrative of Corbyn going to key marginals and Labour heartlands and getting results the press said wouldn’t happen.

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Meme king Stan the Golden Boy went one step beyond and superimposed Corbyn on to the video of Keegan, resulting in the gold below. The last word to him, on how he thinks all of these Corbyn memes have played out. He told me:

I don’t think any particular, specific meme made any tangible impact, but I guess the collective weight of the sheer number of pro-Labour and Corbyn memes, and the fervour for them, was probably not insignificant in keeping people enthused where they might have otherwise accepted the prevalent line that Corbyn was entirely unelectable.